The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 3,061 pages of information about The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5).

The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 3,061 pages of information about The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5).

36.  V. IX.  Curio, V. X. Death of Curio

37.  IV.  XIII.  Sciences

38.  A remarkable example is the general exposition regarding cattle in the treatise on Husbandry (ii. 1) with the nine times nine subdivisions of the doctrine of cattle-rearing, with the “incredible but true” fact that the mares at Olisipo (Lisbon) become pregnant by the wind, and generally with its singular mixture of philosophical, historical, and agricultural notices.

39.  Thus Varro derives -facere- from -facies-, because he who makes anything gives to it an appearance, -volpes-, the fox, after Stilo from -volare pedibus- as the flying-footed; Gaius Trebatius, a philosophical jurist of this age, derives -sacellum- from -sacra cella-, Figulus -frater- from -fere alter- and so forth.  This practice, which appears not merely in isolated instances but as a main element of the philological literature of this age, presents a very great resemblance to the mode in which till recently comparative philology was prosecuted, before insight into the organism of language put a stop to the occupation of the empirics.

40.  V. XII.  Grammatical Science

41.  V. XI.  Sciences of General Culture at This Period

42.  V. XI.  Reform of the Calendar

43.  V. XII.  Dramatic Spectacles

44.  Such “Greek entertainments” were very frequent not merely in the Greek cities of Italy, especially in Naples (Cic. pro Arch. 5, 10; Plut.  Brut. 21), but even now also in Rome (iv. 192; Cic.  Ad Fam. vii. 1, 3; Ad Att. xvi. 5, 1; Sueton.  Caes. 39; Plut.  Brut. 21).  When the well-known epitaph of Licinia Eucharis fourteen years of age, which probably belongs to the end of this period, makes this “girl well instructed and taught in all arts by the Muses themselves” shine as a dancer in the private exhibitions of noble houses and appear first in public on the Greek stage (-modo nobilium ludos decoravi choro, et Graeca in scaena prima populo apparui-), this doubtless can only mean that she was the first girl that appeared on the public Greek stage in Rome; as generally indeed it was not till this epoch that women began to come forward publicly in Rome (p. 469).

These “Greek entertainments” in Rome seem not to have been properly scenic, but rather to have belonged to the category of composite exhibitions—­primarily musical and declamatory—­such as were not of rare occurrence in subsequent times also in Greece (Welcker, Griech.  Trag., p. 1277).  This view is supported by the prominence of flute-playing in Polybius (xxx. 13) and of dancing in the account of Suetonius regarding the armed dances from Asia Minor performed at Caesar’s games and in the epitaph of Eucharis; the description also of the -citharoedus- (Ad Her. iv. 47, 60; comp.  Vitruv. v. 5, 7) must have been derived from such “Greek entertainments.”  The combinations of these representations in Rome with Greek athletic combats is significant (Polyb.

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